(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
I think I prefer Mr. WELLS'S recent essay in the Newest Theology to
this too concrete illustration of _The Soul of a Bishop_ (CASSELL).
It's not that I object to the irreverence of stripping a poor tired
bishop of cassock and gaiters, pursuing him to a sleepless bed and
cinematographing all his physical twistings and turnings, his moral
misgivings, his torturing doubts. I owe too much to Mr. WELLS'
irreverences to mind that sort of thing; and I must say that, for a
man who can't have had very much to do with the episcopacy in his
busy life, he does manage to give a confoundedly plausible atmosphere
to the whole setting. There are two letters from an older bishop to
_Dr. Scrope_, the one, yieldingly tolerant, to dissuade him from
resignation, the other, written after the accomplished fact, with
touches of exquisitely restrained yet palpable malice, which strike
me as masterly projections. Mr. WELLS also contrives a wonderful
impressiveness in certain passages of the bishop's three visions. But
I can't, even after careful re-reading, see the point of making the
bishop's enlightenment depend upon a mysterious drug. This has an
effect of impishness. There is nothing in _Dr. Scrope's_ development
that might not have taken place without this fantastic assistance....
I suppose the general suggestion of this rather wayward and hasty but
conspicuously sincere book is, that if only an occasional bishop would
secede it would make it easier for the plain man to listen to the
rest. And there may be something in this.
To those who are in love with Mr. W.J. LOCKE'S incurable romanticism
or who have a taste for heroines that "stiffen in a sudden stroke
of passion looking for the instant electrically beautiful," let me
commend _The Red Planet_ (LANE). As a matter of fact _Betty_, the
heroine, is quite a dear, and the narrator, _Major Meredyth_, a maimed
hero of the Boer War, who looks at this one from the tragic angle of
an invalid chair, is, apart from a habit of petulant and not very
profound grousing at Governments in _The Daily Rail_ manner, a sport
who thoroughly deserves the reward of poor widowed _Betty's_ hand
on the last page but one. Perhaps he does not show a very ready
understanding of the phenomenon of physical cowardice in the case of a
brother-officer, though later he makes amends. But I take it that it
was Mr. LOCKE'S idea to present a very ordinary decent sort with the
common man's prejudices and frank distrust of subtleties. A sinister
mystery of love, death and blackmail runs, a turbid undercurrent,
through the story. The publisher's pathetic apology for the drab grey
paper on which, in the interests of War Economy, the book is printed,
makes one wonder how the other publishers who still issue books in
black and white manage to live.
* * * * *
Of the literary reputations that the War has, so to speak, dug in, I
suppose none to be more firmly consolidated than that of Mr. PATRICK
MACGILL. The newest of his several battle-books is _The Brown
Brethren_ (JENKINS), a title derived from the campaigning colour
that has amended a popular quotation till it should now read "the
thin brown line of heroes." I can hardly tell you anything about
Mr. MACGILL'S new book that you have not probably read or said for
yourself of the previous volumes. For my own part, if the War is to
be written about at all (a question concerning which I preserve an
open mind), I say let it be, as here, the real thing, and the hotter
and stronger the better. There is rough humour in these sketches of
soldier types, and just enough story to thread them together; but it
is the fighting that counts. Certain chapters, for example that about
_Benner's_ struggle with the Hun sniper, seem to leave one bruised and
breathless as from personal conflict. Mr. MACGILL writes about war as
he knows it, horribly, in a way that carries conviction like a charge
of bayonets, and with an entire disregard of the sensibilities of the
stay-at-home reader. For all which reasons _The Brown Brethren_ and
their French friends are assured of the success that they certainly
deserve. Here's wishing them the best of it!
* * * * *
In _The Sentence of the Court_ (WARD, LOCK) Mr. FRED M. WHITE
contrives effectively to entangle our interest in one of those webs of
facile intrigue from which the reader escapes only at the last line of
the last page, muttering at he lays the volume down and observes with
concern that it is 2.30 A.M., "What rot!" The title of the story is
misleading. There is no Court, and nobody is sentenced, though the
eminent specialist of Harley Street who essays the _rôle_ of villain
richly deserves to be. However, as he is left a bankrupt, discredited
in his practice and detached from the heroine whom he had sworn to
appropriate, it would perhaps be straining a point to cavil at his
remaining at large. The idea upon which the story is based, and which
enables the author to clothe his characters and their actions with
bewildering mystery, is essentially good and, I believe, new, though
far be it from me to do either Mr. WHITE or the reader the disservice
of saying what it is. Suffice that we are introduced to some quite
charming people, as well as two extremely unpleasant ones, and if the
web of mystery is held together in places by a somewhat generous share
of obtuseness on the part of the persons concerned it is not for us to
complain, since we become aware of the defect only after the affair is
over.
* * * * *
Apart from the greater complaint that I do not like her subject, which
probably is entirely my own fault, I have nothing but praise for Mrs.
STANLEY WRENCH'S latest volume, _Beat_ (DUCKWORTH), except as regards
her amazing fondness for drooping the corners of her characters'
mouths, generally either "wistfully" or "sullenly." It only made one
annoyed when _Beatrix's_ unpleasant sisters developed the trick,
but when poor little _Beat_ herself was affected that way, in spite
of the magnificent courage with which she faced the burden of
deputy-motherhood, it made one miserable as well. The task she had
undertaken was a prodigious one, for the sisters she had to rear
were, you must understand, vexed with sex instincts of the type of
the modern novel, and so in a large measure she failed, even though
she sacrificed strength, happiness and even her own love-story in
the effort to keep them straight. The tale is set out with every
circumstance of sordid misery, in which the spiritual beauty of
the heroine is meant to shine, and undeniably does shine with
real strength and purity. The successive deaths of the mother and
step-mother, the shabby London lodgings, the fall of _Veronica_, the
selfishness of _Beat's_ boy-friend, and the loathsome trade of her
lover--these, and more horrors and lapses beside, are all taxed for
the general effect in so able and vivid a fashion that the authoress
succeeds to admiration in making her readers nearly as uncomfortable
as her characters, long before the climax is reached. The end comes
rather less wretchedly than could have been expected, but even so
surely this is genius partly run to seed. The greatest tragedies are
not written in these minor keys. _Beat_, woman and heroine, is so
admirable that one fain would know her apart from all this unredeemed
welter of sex and selfishness.
* * * * *
I confess I should have thought that the fictional possibilities
of being as like as two peas to Royalty were fairly exhausted. But
apparently Mr. EDGAR JEPSON does not share this view; and it is only
fair to admit that in _The Professional Prince_ (HUTCHINSON) he has
contrived to give a novel twist to the already well laboured theme.
_Prince Richard_ (precise nationality unstated) was so bored with
the common round of his exalted duties that, hearing of a convenient
double, he engages him, at four hundred a year and pickings, to
represent him at dull functions, and incidentally to pay the requisite
attentions to the young woman, reported by photograph as depressingly
plain, whom political considerations have marked as the _Prince's
fiancée_. When later one of the characters points out to His Highness
that this conduct showed some lapse from the finer ideals of taste, I
am bound to say that I could find no words of contradiction. However
the originality arrives when _John Stuart_, the deputy, instead of
falling in love with the bride-elect in Ruritanian fashion, develops
a marked liking for the prosaic side of his job, and insists upon
lecturing his supposed relations upon the political crisis of the
moment. Capital fun this. When the _fiancée_ in her turn proved wholly
different from the photograph I permitted myself to hope that we
were in for a double masquerade--but this was to expect too much.
Still, Mr. JEPSON has handled his wildly-preposterous plot with
great verve; and even if the central situation is one that has been
often encountered before, this only proves again that HOPE springs
eternal.... But I wish he had avoided the War.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Manager of Automatic Dreadnought Pianofortissimo
Company (enthusiastically to Literary Gentleman who has written a
moving appeal to the public in favour of the Company's goods)._ "MY
DEAR SIR, THIS IS MAGNIFICENT. IT ALMOST MAKES ME DECIDE TO BUY ONE
OF THE THINGS FOR MYSELF."]
* * * * *
"WHERE MY CARAVAN HAS RESTED."
"Wanted, modern Detached Villa Residence, inside tram
lines."--_Northern Whig_.